_Miscellaneous.

We understand that early in the approaching season it is the intention of his Royal Highness 'the Duke De Montpensier, son of the King of - the French, to visit this country ; when the Royal Duke will stay about

three weeks in this Metropolis.—Morning Post.

The New Governor-General of Canada, with his family and suite, will leave this country in the Columbia on the 4th March : berths have been taken for the accommodation of his Excellency. We are happy in making this announcement, as showing the wishes of Government in taking advantage of the speediest and most regular means of crossing the Atlantic.—Standard.

Viscount Jocelyn has resigned his appointment of Steward of the Irish Household, finding the duties of the office incompatible with his attendance in Parliament.

Lord Oranmore was not a candidate for the vacancy in the number of Irish Representative Peers : he has written a letter to the Dublin Evening Post, acknowledging the honour conferred by the single vote of his friend Lord Trimlestone, but adding, " I never thought of being a candidate now or hereafter ; knowing I have an irreconcileable dif- ference of political opinion from the great majority of Irish Peers."

The following melancholy and affecting account of the present state of Dr. Southey's health was given by Mrs. Southey, formerly well known as Miss Caroline Bowles, to Mrs. Sigonrney, the American authoress, in a private answer to a letter in which she desired to be remembered to the Laureate : Mrs. Sigourney published the extract, and it is now, though it ought never to have been, public property-

" You desire to be remembered to him who sang of • Thalabs, the wild and

wondrous tale.' Alas, my friend, the dull cold ear of death is not more in- sensible than his, my dearest husband's, to all communications from the world without. Scarcely can I keep hold of the last poor comfort of believing that be- still knows me. The almost complete unconsciousness has not been of more than six months standing, though more than two years have elapsed since he has written even his name. After the death of his first wife, Edith— of his first love, who was for several years insane—his health was terribly shaken. Yet, fur the greater part of the year he spent with me in Hampshire, my former home, it seemed perfectly reestablished; and he used to say, It bad surely pleased God that the last years of his life should be happy: But tha Almighty's will was otherwise. The little cloud soon appeared which was in no long time to overshadow all. In the blackness of its shadow we still live, and shall pass from under it only to the portals of the grave. The last three years have done on me the work of twenty. The one sole business of my life is that which, 1 verily believe, keeps the life in me—the guardianship of my dear, helpless, unconscious husband."

The overland mail brings Indian intelligence from Bombay to the 2d of January, and Chinese from Macao to the 19th of November.

The Governor-General, with the Commander-in-Chief and a portion of the Army of Reserve, was stationed to receive the forces returning from Afghanistan at Ferozepore ; whence the latest date appears to be December 18th. The march of the troops had been difficult, from the nature of the country and the want of good roads ; but latterly it had been more easy. According to some accounts, sickness had "ravaged"

the troops ; but others say that that is an exaggeration, and that a small- pox, which always prevails in Peshawur, had visited the soldiers in a

mild form. There bad, however, been many deaths among the officers. The crossing of the Sutlej and entry into Ferozepore were celebrated by dramatic accessories. The first division, consisting of the first and second brigade, under General Pollock and Sir Robert Sale, with the head-quarters, cavalry, and horse artillery, arrived on the 18th. The post of honour and precedence was given to the "illustrious garrison of Jellalabad " ; Lady Sale and some ladies on elephants leading the column. At one end of the pontoon bridge over the river a pavilion had been erected ; where Lord Ellenborough stationed himself with his Secre- taries, while the troops passed ; raising his hat and bowing low to Lady Sale. The scene is thus described-

" Major-General Sale' with the garrison of Jellalabad, marched in with the honours directed by the Governor-General in April last. The whole Army of Reserve was drawn up in one line, stretching from the left of the Artillery- camp towards the river, according to precedence of arms. The Governor- General and Commander-in-Chief, attended by the staff, army, and personal, proceeded to the bridge ; where they met Major-General Sale, [the Command- er-in-Chief shook him warmly by the hand,) and thence returned with him. General Sale, and the colours of the 13th and 35th were saluted as they respectively passed regiments; and on the former coming in front of the Foot Artillery, a salute of nineteen guns was fired. The Europeans marched steadily and gravely, but the Natives gave unequivocal signs of joy at their return to Hindostan : the occasional shout, and the good-will with which they closed their open files to front, were sufficiently indicative of this. The Jella- lsbad medal glittered proudly on the breast of each member of the garrison; while the unique attire of the sappers and the mountain-train, and the dimi- nutive guns and long-eared cattle of the latter, were new and pleasing to many of the spectators. The brigade passed head-quarters, and encamped in front of the Governor-General."

The remainder of General Pollock's army was expected on the 19th, and the Candahar troops, under General Nott, on the 20th. Their march had been hastened a day, as there was a threat of heavy rains, and it was feared that the river might rise and carry away the b idge.

Dost Mahommed had an interview with Lord Ellenborough at Loo- dianah in the beginning of December ; and was to proceed with an escort to Peshawnr, where he was to reside for some time, under the protection of the Sikh Government. There were various reports of the anarchy to which Cabal had been left. Shab Poor still maintained himself on the throne of Shah Sujah ; and Futteh Jung, another of the dead King's sons, at Candahar. Akhbar Khan's friends threatened his reappearance, at the head of a large force, to dispossess the boy sovereign, Shah Poor. The Governor- General adhered to his declared neutrality.

A despatch from General M`Caskill, calling attention to the merits of some officers cf Brigadier Stacey's rrigade on the capture of Istalif, had been published. The General says—" My commendations have been especially earned by Major G. Browne and her Majesty's Forty- first Regiment, for the share they took in these gallant efforts, and for the exemplary humanity displayed by the men towards the unfortu- nate families of the vanquished.'

In pursuance of projects of the Indian Government for improving the British navigation of the Indus, a demand had been made upon the Ameers of Seinde for their assent to a treaty, by which Kurrachee and Tatta, and a strip of land extending along the bank of the Indus, with the towns and forts of Sukkur, Bukknr, and Roree, and as far as their territory reached, should be made over to the Company. The Ameers appeared at first eager to make a determined resistance; but the pre- sence of the British army, under the command of Sir Charles Napier, had diminished that eagerness. Major Outram, who was removed in November from the Political Agency at Hyderabad, had early in December received orders from the Governor-General to resume those functions, as his knowledge of the inhabitants and their rulers was likely to prove advantageous. He started from Bombay on board a steamer on the 16th December, to proceed to join Sir Charles Napier.

Lord Ellenborough's proclamations, especially the one "to all the princes and chiefs and people of India," had been severely criticised in the Indian papers : his deference to an institution of barbarous and ob- scene rites, (for the temple of Somnath is supposed to have been dedi- cated to Budhist worship,) is censured as forgetful of his Christianity; and the turgid style of language is mercilessly ridiculed. Of the general tone of the criticism, the Bombay Times, originally his sup- porter, says- " From one end of India to the other, there is not a single journal which has not made it the subject of the severest censure, of scorn, or of ridicule : the unanimity of the press has been absolute—and no marvel; that of the public has been, we have no doubt, the same."

The Calcutta Star quotes from the Asiatic Journal of 1838 an ac- count of the temple of Somnath, by Lieutenant Postans ; from which it appears that the temple was dedicated to the extinct, and, according to modern British notions, obscene worship of the Budbist faith--

"Without pretending to an accurate knowledge of the peculiar features, distinguishing the Budhistical and Jab from Hindoo sanctuaries, my impression, founded simply upon observation, is, that the Somnath was originally a Budbist temple, afterwards appropriated to the worship of Siva; and probably thus found by Mahmoud at the period of its capture. In confirmation of the Linga having at some period received adoration here, I observed two Nandis outside among the ruins: but in its style of architecture and ornament (particularly the male and female figures) it is in vain to look for any Hindoo features ; while in all points it agrees most accurately with the Budhistical." The temple is not merely dedicated to an extinct faith ; it is in possession, not of the Hindoos, but of Mussulmans-

"The temple of Somnath," says the Friend of India, " is in ruins. The little that remains of it has been converted into a Mahometan mosque. Not only has the remembrance of the temple been utterly lost, but the temple itself has ceased to exist as a Hindoo sanctuary ; and there is literally no building at Som- nath to which the gates can be affixed, excepting a Mahometan mosque."

The compliment, however, according to the Bombay correspondent of the Times, has been greedily seized by the Hindoos-

" Lord Ellenborough's last proclamation is indeed a curiosity in its way. I had occasion officially to hear it read in an assembly of Brahmins and other Hindoos; and, not having previously made myself acquainted with its purport, was not a little astonished when it was read. I said nothing, however, and looked for the general impression it would make : but, having asked what the assembly thought of it, 'Ab!' cried all, 'what justice, what kindness, what beneficence it is to Hindoos that the great British Government should have sent its troops to Gbuznee and Cabal to get the gates of Somni.th! And does not the Nawab Governor-General say he is our friend and our brother ? What condescension 1"fhis was the impression in my little assembly, and it appears to be universal among the Hindoos. Not only here around me, but throughout India, the impression made by this unfortunate document will be, that the whole war was undertaken to regain the gates of Somnith, and that this is but the prelude to restore Hindooism to its pristine glory." On the other hand, it is gall and wormwood to the Mussulmans-

"Think, however, what the impressions of humiliation and of scorn will be when it is known by the Mahometans. A Mahometan gentleman was with me when I had it read, and he turned away in evident confusion and disgust. 'It is clear we have eaten much dirt,' he said afterwards, in allusion to it; 'but you, Sahib loque, are airs ays, victorious—who can withstand you ? ' If his Lordship or the whole Calcutta Council had set their wits to work to discover a thing which would offend the Mahometan population, they could not have devised a more suitable one than this declaration. Henceforth, as all will say, 'the Hindoos are the brothers and friends of the British Government, we are not even thought of. Humiliated by the conquest and spoliation of Afghan- istan, from which thousands of our ancestors accompanied klahmoud of Glum- nee, Nadir Schab, and the conqueror in the bloody battle of Paniput, our rule destroyed, and our race despised, henceforth we must bow our necks to the people whom, whenever we have had occasion to do so, we have defeated and despoiled.' Will not this proclamation be felt as an insult wherever Mahome- tans are in bodies, in the large cities of Delhi, and Lucknow, at Hyderabad, and in other Mahometan principalities?" The Friend of India confirms this view of the impolicy of the pro- clamation as respects the Mussulmans, and shows that the time for it was peculiarly inopportune- " The season is most inauspicious for this departure from the right neutra- lity which Goverument has hitherto so wisely adopted. The Mussulmans base latterly imbibed the idea that it was the aim of the British Administra- tion to depress the scale of Mahometanism and elevate that of Hindooism. In the natural progress of our empire and institutions, we have given them some reason fur thinking so. It is not long since the head of the house of Timur was informed that he must cease to consider himself the Titular Em- peror of India, and the British Resident was withdrawn from his Court. We have ceased to coin money in his name. We have abolished the language of tlw Menu tin dynasty, and thereby given a preponderance to 'Endo° inter- ests. It is natural that the Mahometans should feel deeply the depression to which they are thus subjected; and it has hitherto been the rule with our Go- vernment to soothe their exasperated feelings and to endeavour to dispel every idea of partial treatment from their minds."

There had been no change in the course of events in China. The last division of the British fleet had left the Yang- tse-kiang river, and anchored at Chusan on the 17th October ; and there a portion of the troops were to be stationed. Others were to be stationed at Amoy, and the remainder at Hong-kong. Before leaving Nankin, the Imperial Commissioners gave a grand entertainment to a great many of the officers of the Navy and Army ; during which, professions of the most friendly feelings on both sides were not wanted. The behaviour of the people, whenever they went on shore, was very peaceable.

Several decrees hid been issued by the Emperor, in the spirit of the new treaty. English merchants and their families are to be permitted, according to those decrees, to reside at Canton, at Fowchowfoo, at Amoy, Ningpoo, and Shanghae ; and their ships are to have places for repairs. Hong-kong is ceded in perpetuity as a colony to Great Bri- tain, and the Hong merchants are to be abolished. Captain Balfour, of the Madras Artillery, who had gained a considerable knowledge of the Chinese language and character, was named British Consul-General, to reside at Shanghae.

The Queen's ship Herald, Captain Nias, had arrived at Hong-korg, on the way home, with 1,500,000 more dollars, part of the first instal- ment. Sir Henry Pottinger was expected to arrive at long-kong towards the end of November or the beginning of December, in order to carry on the negotiations respecting the commercial tariff. Sir Hugh Gough, the Commander-in-Chief, intended, it was stated, to sail for Calcutta in the beginning of December. Several of the British soldiery appear to have suffered severely from sickness. The Chinese were rebuilding and repairing the fortifications on the river at Canton.

Orders have been received at Woolwich to send two sergeants, two corporals, and thirty privates of the Sappers and Miners, to Hong- kong, to be employed in fortifications on that island. We have received a copy of a memorial to Sir Robert Peel, signed by a great number of merchants and manufacturers in the large manu- facturing and trading towns, on the subject of the opium-trade. They Point to the injury which the opium-smuggling is likely to entail on the trade with China, and recommend the suppression of the growth of the drug in India.

The debate in the French Chamber of Deputies on the right of search Paragraph of the Address terminated on Thursday last week. It will be remembered, that it was the principal interpolation which the Com- mittee introduced into the Ministerial echo of the King's Speech. Mar- shal Soult announced that Ministers " accepted" tlte'situaMon in which the paragraph placed them : it hints at negotiation4 'far the termination of the treaties of 1831 and '33. While doing so, hnweever, he declared that he "accepted" all that M. Guizot had said, and tjit.he-iras a warm partisan of the English alliance— u t - "Much has been said of the English alliance. I dec1t I 41414:wins years back, that I am a warm partisan of that alliance. I bad occasion to say it in this place on my return from London, when I called to mind that I had learned to estimate the English nation on the fields of battle. I fought the English down to Toulouse—(" You mean at Waterloo.")—yes, at Waterloo. I was there: I was by the side of Cambronne when he said, The Guard dies, but never surrenders.' (Great interruption.) I repeat that I fought them down to Toulouse, when I defended the national independence, and fired the last cannon for it. In the mean time, I have been to London; and France knows the reception which I bad. (" Yes, yes!" A voice—" The English themselves said, Fire Soultr—they cried Soult for ever ! ' ") I repeat, then, that I am a warm partisan of the English alliance. But in saying so, do I say that I ever forgot—President of the Council, Marshal Sault, private soldier— that I ever forgot the independence and honour of France ? No; in spite of the avowal which I now make, and which I shall always make, if the chances of war were again to arrive, either with England or with any power, I would sacrifice for my country my last breath of life! I would, like Marshal Saxe at Fontenoy, have myself borne to the field of battle on a bier if necessary.

(Continued cheers.)

This acceptance of the interpolated paragraph removed one of the great difficulties in the way of Ministers.

On Friday, the subject of debate was the paragraph on Spanish affairs. M. Guizot declined taking any part in the debate. M. Berryer ob- served that it would be better in that case to omit from the paragraph all the political part. M. Barrot thought the Government, in this paragraph, gave their policy too personal a character. Instead of the phrase "a sincere affection to Queen Isabella," he proposed saying, that a sincere affection was preserved to the Constitutional Government of the Queen. This amendment, after a great deal of discussion, was adopted.

The Address of the Chamber of Deputies was presented to the King on Saturday ; and the King made a short and dry answer.

The correspondent of the Times tells an anecdote of M. Dupin, one of the actors in the late Anti-English demonstrations of the Chambers-

" At a late dinner at the Chateau of the Tuileries, the King called out, Dupin, I wish you would try this bird [a black cock]: I don't know the name of it, but it comes from Scotland.' 'No, thank you, Sire,' replied M. Dnpin don't like any thing English ! '"

The Journal des Daats thus alludes to Lord Brougham's correction of French misapprehension respecting the right of search in reference to the United States ; a correction which he made on the first night of the session, and amplified on Monday last- " The speech of Lord Brougham me:its particular attention. The illus- trious orator came from Paris, where he had been but a few days before : he had been present in our Chambers at some irritating discussions, in which the name and policy of his country had been the object of commentaries little friendly ; and yet Lord Brougham has carried to England nothing but senti- ments of sympathy, of affection, and of respect for France, which he has ex- pressed in language full of cordiality and warmth. Lord Brougham was able to distinguish the true cause of the irritation which has been indulged in France respecting the right of visit ; and almost at the same time that M. Guizot said in the Chamber of Deputies, that there was far more concern about the treaty of July 1840 than about the treaties of 1831 and '33, Lord Brougham exclaimed in the House of Lords, ' All the discussion on the right of visit may be summed up in these words—July 1840, the negotiation of Lord Palmerston.' Lord Brougham expresses the hoc, that time and more con- ciliatory proceedings will calm and efface the irritation, which cannot be more than transitory: We join sincerely in the expression of that desire ; and it appears to us impossible that words so frank and glowing as those of Lord Brougham should not powerfully contribute to effect mutal advances so de- sirable between the two nations."

The last accounts from Algiers, to the 30th January, announce the invasion of the country between Cherchell and Tenez, by the identical Abd-el-Kader whom the immediately preceding advices described as having been again driven into the territory of the Emperor of Morocco, accompanied by only four horsemen. On his reappearance among them, the population rose at his call, and marched with him to invest Cherchell. General Bugeaud, who was at that period in Algiers, im- mediately on learning this movement of the Arabs, embarked (on the 27th ultimo) with two battalions for Cherchell ; where he landed the same night. On the 29th he took the field, and advanced against Abd- el-Kader ; who retired in the direction of Tenez.

According to advices received by the first January West Indian mail, much indignation has been excited in Mexico by the extraordinary statement, that on the 19th October last, the American naval squadron in the Pacific, consisting of the frigate United States of 50 guns and corvette Cyane of 22 guns, under the orders of Commodore Thomas a. Catesby Jones, took forcible possession of Monterey, in Upper Cali- fornia; and, after retaining it three days, again ceded it to the Mexi- cans; whose flag they saluted, and moreover agreed to pay 15,000 diallers, 500 suits of clothing, and a set of instruments for a military band, by way of satisfaction. A proclamation, signed "Thomas Ape- done; Commander-in-Chief of the Naval Forces of the United States in the Pacific Ocean, and of the Naval and Military Expedition for the Occupation of the Californias," and dated the 19th October, began by saying—" Although I come armed as the representative of a powerful nation, avast which the present Government of Mexico has made war, yet I do not come to scatter terror among the peaceful inhabitants of the Californias." And it went on to offer the advantages of United States "citizenship" to any who might choose to accept them. The story seems either an invention or very inaccurately told.

The recent gales have played further havoc on the coasts and at sea.

Intelligence has been received by the under-writers at Lloyd's, of the destruction of another fine Indiaman, named the George M`Leod, home- ward bound, with a valuable cargo of ruin and sugar ; which occurred on the morning of Sunday week, in consequence of her running upon a hard sand-bank on the coast of Scotland, in the Solway Frith, within a few miles northward of Skenburness. On Tuesday week, portions of the wreck—namely a head-board, with the name "George M`Leod " painted on it, and the top of the round-house—were picked up by a sailing-vessel, between Port Carlisle and Skenburness. Another Indiaman, the Larkins, was wrecked early on Sunday morning, off Margate. She rode out the gale during Saturday, but about midnight it was discovered that she was driving near shore, and Captain Hibbert cut away the masts to prevent her from striking. In this he was unsuccessful ; but the vessel withstood the shock, and it 'was expected that she would be got off without very much damage. Again another Indiaman went ashore on Margate Sand on Thursday morning about high-water. The ship is supposed to be the Lady Macnaghten ; no boat at present has come from her. At Portrush the coast is strewed with fragments of a wreck, supposed to be that of the Brilliant of Aberdeen. The brig Mary and Isabella was lost on the night of the 4th, when apart of the crew and two female passengers were drowned. On the following morning, a light brig called the Thomas, drove on shore within a few miles of North Shields.

A schooner was wrecked on the Blaney's Bank, on Thursday night. Two fruitless attempts to reach the wreck were made by the Point of Ayr life-boat, and Victoria steamer. The crew consisted of four men ; and they must have all perished.

In a letter to the Times, Mr. Leitch Ritchie lately suggested a mode of rendering wooden pavement safe. Its slipperiness is unquestionably dan- gerous: in order to prove it, Sir Peter Laurie set Sergeant Teague, of the City Police, to note the number of accidents that occurred on the wood pavement in the Poultry*; and it appeared that from nine o'clock p.m. on the 21st to five p.m. on the 23d, nineteen horses fell on that short piece of pavement. All the horses of the Norwich mail had been thrown down on the spot, and the mail had been delayed half an hour. Mr. Ritchie, however, points to a very simple expedient- " I have had an opportunity of observing that they [wooden pavements] are perfectly safe in St. Petersburg, although there the droskies fly along the streets at a pace which would excite wonder and alarm here. The cause of this difference, in my opinion, simply is, that in England we think our task completed when we have laid down the blocks and filled up their interstices ; whereas in Russia, the wooden surface is carefully covered with a coating of pitch, or some other substance of the kind, and this again strewed with sand. This process has the twofold effect of preserving the wood for a great length of time, and forming a surface which is as safe in all weathers as the best Mac- adamized road."

The suggestion merits attention.

There is, it seems, an " estatica " at Youghal. From a letter written by the Reverend Mr. Foley, a Roman Catholic priest, to a Roman Ca- tholic clergyman at Cork, it appears that there is some seeptici:m abroad as to the facts ; but Mr. Foley says, that the " estatica" is a young girl, a relative of his, "an always pious girl"; the phrenomena have continued for "months, nay for almost years "; blood has been seen on the girl's hands, feet, and side—the sites of the stigmata ; she has been seen elevated over the ground in prayer, and often in ec- stacy ; and she predicted the approach of some incredulous persons, 'who came and saw nothing, the miracles not being vouchsafed in their presence.